


L plus N

by VFarnon



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: F/M, First Love, Hogwarts years, Male-Female Friendship, Pre-Canon, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:00:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23751226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VFarnon/pseuds/VFarnon
Summary: People choose their future, no matter what Professor Cassandra Trelawney has to say about it. And if so, than Leta has chosen what’s inscribed on that desk.
Relationships: Leta Lestrange/Newt Scamander
Comments: 17
Kudos: 17





	1. Thestrals

They had been friends for just a couple of months, and summer holidays were looming ahead already, and so it was very quiet in the school carriage rolling to the station. Cold Atlantics of home life was seeping in through this silence, and Leta tried to plug it with nearly fierce chattering. All the summer plans had already been discussed, as had the exam results, food for knarls, a little unicorn called Theodor, the bowtruckles withering from missing Newt...

“They could have found someone not so scary for the carriages,” Leta said at Hogsmeade Station, and nodded at the skeleton horses pulling the carriages.

Newt looked at her, then at the carriages, his eyes widening in surprise.

“You can see them?” he exclaimed enthusiastically, but then got embarrassed and hastily added, “I mean… I’m sorry! I didn't know... You’ve lost someone, right?

“You’ve lost”. As if she was the victim, innocent.

“It’s Mum. I was just a baby...” Leta made a helpless gesture, “I don’t remember her at all.”

Newt offered no forced compulsory condolences and just took her by the hand. Like with animals: words cannot comfort them, voice and touch work better. Leta squeezed his warm fingers in response and turned back to the Thestrals again before she said something irreparable.

“They aren’t that scary if you take a good look at them”, she declared. “Just a horse skeleton dressed up as a bat for Halloween!”

Newt reached out cautiously to stroke the invisible beast, but got its stiff bony side instead of its muzzle. Leta moved his hand.

“People made up all kinds of horrors about them because of what they look like” he said, running his fingers over its long black mane, “But I think they give comfort. To those who has lost someone. That’s why they stop hiding in their invisibility.”

He looked at Leta timidly. She stared at the bony lizard horse, and it gazed back at her with its white, inanimate eyes. Only Newt could see such beasts as giving comfort, yet it worked. 

“Professor Kettleburn says, they are kind and loyal” said Newt “if you give them a chance to show it. But people never did, so they became invisible.”

All of a sudden Leta felt like bursting into tears. Well, no way! She was not going to become a thestral. Hogwarts Express gave a deafening whistle, urging students to hurry inside, and Leta shook her gloomy thoughts off like seaweed. There were still many hours of the road ahead, to the sound of wheels and talking of thestrals, letters, chocolate and ordinary frogs. It was too early for her to drown.


	2. The photo

Closing her eyes for a moment of sheer frustration, Leta stretched her lips into a smile and stared into the camera. Yet again. The flash made her shudder and even more infuriated, like the click of a whip would make a circus ZouWu. 

“My dearest lady, I beg you!” groaned the photographer, a hapless gray haired gentleman in a faded emerald suit, having aged this morning for a dozen years. “Do you really want the readers to paint your portrait over with ink in fear of getting jinxed?” 

Leta flared her nostrils. She cared neither for the readers of this sad rag for pure blood fanatics nor for its false articles on their “ancient and famed family line”. Her father hates her and he is right! Shame that the journalist wouldn’t want to tell such a story. What a scandal could it be! For a second Leta glumly relished in the thought of herself crucified on the front page, free at last. 

“Forget the camera, imagine I’m your old friend and we haven’t seen each other for ages”, the photographer pleaded. “You come to answer the door, you open it - and oi, what a happy meeting! Come on, smile at me!”

He dived under the camera curtain with no hope, like into a hole in the ice, and prepared to take a shot. Leta, couldn’t help imagining what he had described. Her heels clinking on the marbles and lacquered oak of her father’s house, her heavy and adult beaded dress, family diamonds violently swaying in her ears. She would push the little house elf aside and open the door — and find Newt at the door, in a dress robe and with some needy creature in his hands, pockets bristling with frogspawn and crumpled berries. 

A white flash blinded this picture, and Leta came round to find the exhausted photographer smiling at the photo that had just appeared in his hands.

“Thank you!” he exhaled. “This is exactly what I needed.”

***

The photo was good. Leta looked at her new self again, packed in an evening dress and orchids, decorated with the smile she had always wanted. The vacations were in full play, only a month had passed since they said bye at King’s cross, and just a couple of days — since his last letter, but Leta sent the photo to Newt with a postscript saying “Hope you haven’t forgotten me yet” anyway.


	3. On the rights of hedgehogs

“Great job, Stephen! Where did this pattern come from?”

“My Mum loves embroidering, sir, she has a small embroidered cushion like this...”

“Your mother has a good hand. Five points to Hufflepuff.” 

At the neighboring desk Leta too managed to complete the task, a satin pin cushion was sitting in front of her, exactly the same as Madame Irma used back at home. She never thought she remembered such small things... Next to her, Newt tickled his hedgehog with the tip of his finger. The beast trustingly rolled onto its back, not having acquired any similarity with a pin cushion during the whole lesson. Their class started on animals transfiguration quite recently, and though Newt grudgingly agreed to turn a beetle into a button, when it came to mice, hedgehogs and rabbits the school program found in him an implacable enemy. 

“Professor Dumbledore’s coming!” Leta whispered to him. “Give it a try at least!”

Newt stubbornly shook his head and looked at her and her cushion with utmost disapproval.

“Would you like to be turned into an object yourself?” 

They had almost fallen out after the last Transfiguration class over a pair of rabbits getting turned into slippers. Leta claimed that nothing happened to these rabbits and they became rabbits again a long time ago, but Newt responded irritably with something along the lines of “You just fancy Professor Dumbledore!” Which was utter nonsense, of course!

“What do we have here?” Professor Dumbledore stopped in front of their desk. “Newt, transfiguration is not a curse, nothing bad is going to happen to your hedgehog. We will give its paws and needles back in a moment.”

“I wouldn’t want to become a cushion even if it was just for a second, sir!”

“Would you? And here I am, wishing for it every morning to stay in bed a bit longer!..”

Leta and the nearby students giggled, but Newt remained as cheerless as a crypt.

“Excuse me, sir, but that's just stupid”, he announced to the dismay of his Hufflepuff classmates, who froze in gloomy anticipation of the inevitable loss of points. “If I ever need a pin cushion, I will turn a stone into it, not a living creature!”

Professor Dumbledore nodded, undeterred.

“And you will be absolutely right. But imagine this: you picked up a wounded knarl in the forest. They look a lot like hedgehogs, right?”

“Yes...” Newt agreed, cautious.

“Of course, you will not leave it in the forest to starve, so you will take the animal to school for treatment. However, as you, of course, remember, keeping these beasts at Hogwarts is prohibited. It will be difficult to get a knarl through without getting noticed, but you can easily slip a pin cushion into your pocket — and it’s done!” 

Newt’s eyes shifted from the smiling professor to his hedgehog and back for a few seconds, and then he raised his wand.


	4. Quidditch

“The Snitch is nowhere to be seen, and Slytherin is leading with a score of 40:20!”

Newt and Leta had missed all of the six scored balls because ten minutes ago they were feeding a hippogriff chick somewhere in the wet thickets on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Leta hadn’t even thought about the game when Newt, holding a bowl with pieces of meat and looking at her offering them in her palm to the distrustful eagle foal, suddenly burst out, “Do you want to watch the game?”

Leta looked up in surprise, and the hippogriff gnawed painfully on her finger with its sharp little beak. Newt wrapped the wound with his handkerchief smeared with earth and greens, then remembered he knew a spell for cuts (and it almost skinned over her mouth instead of the scratch), and then he froze as if she were a hippogriff and threatened to peck him to death.

“The game?” Leta asked. “You like Quidditch?”

“My bro... Everybody like Quidditch, and I thought maybe you’d rather... maybe you want to go.”

Leta was surprised, but agreed.

Despite the cold and drizzle, the stands were crowded. Only having seen yellow and green everywhere, Leta remembered it was her house playing that day. Against Hufflepuff. She turned to Newt, who was unusually quiet.

“Wanna bet?”

“I know you’ll win,” he protested. “Our Travis is in the hospital wing, Bertie Higgs has taken his place, and yesterday was his first day on the broom, so...”

“I’m betting on Hufflepuff! Two licorice wands.”

“Three on Slytherin, then.”

“You don't have them, we ate your last one yesterday!”  
Newt patted his pockets and found a half-eaten carrot in one and a sugar mouse with dried blades of grass stuck to it in the other.

Leta laughed. 

“Accepted! Come on, there's a place over there.”

They made their way to the very top of the stand and flopped down on a wet bench. Muttering Impervius, Newt draped an old black and yellow flag around both of them. Huge as a blanket, it used to decorate the Great Hall, until two years ago, when the pixies escaped from Newt right at breakfast, tore it off and dropped it on the professors’ table. That earned Newt two weeks of detention, but he claimed the flag, soiled with juice, porridge and jam. The Gryffindors sitting below turned around and wrinkled their noses in an mean way. Leta and Newt has been dragging this flag along with them all autumn, and it was soaked with smells of wet wool and feathers, wood, disinfecting potion, fish, Newt’s favorite licorice sweets, and Sleekeazy's Hair Potion, which Leta once tried to use to wash a unicorn. This was the banner of adventures they had shared, and Leta just snorted at the Griffidoor girls and moved closer to Newt, so that he had enough space to hide from the rain.

“Riley passes the Quaffle to Carrow, Carrow rushes to the rings, a pass to Nott... An aptly launched Bludger knocks the Quaffle out of Nott’s hands, and a shriek worthy of a banshee out of Nott himself. I see the female half of the audience is in despair. Worry not, ladies, your idol is alive and well, and nose fractures look good on men, just look at Professor Dumbledore!”

Leta giggled, turned to Newt and found him looking at her apprehensively, as if she were a niffler not grabbing a golden galleon.

“What?”

“Nothing!” Newt turned to the pitch in a rush and then suddenly asked: “Do you like this Nott?”

Leta burst out laughing.

“I like you. Hey, look, your Higgs is not that bad!”

Despite the rising star of Bertie Higgs’s quidditch talent, Slytherin won with a crushing score. Leta handed her licorice wands over to Newt. They had got hungry during the long game and ate the sweets together with the carrot, sugar mouse and rain on their way to the castle. Leta froze to the bone and had no doubt she was to catch a cold by tomorrow’s classes, but was strangely not bothered at all. It was strange she’d enjoyed Quidditch so much. She hadn’t been interested in it before, but she hadn’t been interested in magic creatures either, and certainly not in getting detention, but in Newt’s company everything acquired a completely different taste. Even carrots.


	5. Maiden and the unicorn

The day was cold and sunny, and light blue shadows were stretching across fresh snow from the trees, three people and one unicorn. Over the past months Theodor the unicorn had grown from a thin-legged golden foal to an almost adult steed much taller than Newt, and with a menacingly sharp horn on his forehead. His bright golden coat had been almost completely replaced by snow-white, shimmering hair, and one could spot several reddish gold strands only in the mane and fluffy brushes above the hooves. The unicorn was violently kneading the snow with his hooves, and shivered every time stepping on his left hind leg, yet refused to stand still and let people approach.

“Hoof’s cracked, that’s for sure, and he must’ve caught some infection,” said Professor Kettleburn, watching him with concern. “Stubborn beast, came to people for help and won’t allow us close!”

Leta cautiously approached the unicorn. Theodor beat his hooves again, jumped to the side and shook his head, either chasing her away, or simply trying to shake off the pain.

“Wait!” Newt exclaimed anxiously.

“A unicorn will never offend a girl”, Professor Kettleburn reassured him and nodded to Leta. “Come, little by little.”

Leta took another step. Theodor backed away and threw back his head in pain, stepping on the sore hoof again. It seemed he had completely forgotten that he was supposed to like girls and that he had just recently been eating apples from this very girl’s hand. Holding out her open palm, Leta came a little closer and gently touched the shining silver neck. The unicorn let out a quiet neigh, almost weeping, as if he recognized her and was complaining to her of his misfortune. Leta whispered something soothing to him. She could have used a soothing spell, but it seemed a betrayal: like casting Rictusempra on an upset friend to avoid listening about his troubles. The snow creaked — Newt approached her, and Professor Kettleburn followed him with his wand at the ready. However, there was no need for magic: Theodor let them come closer and did not object even when Newt lifted his foot and cleared the hoof of dirt with a spell.

“We need to let out the pus”, said Professor Kettleburn, raising his wand. “Accio knife.”

He caught the knife flying towards him like a steel butterfly and leaned over the hoof, but Newt stopped him.

“Professor, may I?”

Professor Kettleburn hesitated, but gave him the knife.

“Watch yourself, the beast has gained some strength”, he warned. “If he starts to lark about, let him go immediately and leave, both of you.”

Newt nodded intently and, having wrapped his sleeves up, set to work.

Leta was left to pet the unicorn on his neck and beautiful thin muzzle, while Newt did all the work. Holding Theodor's injured leg, wand in his teeth, he carefully scraped the crack in the hoof. The unicorn jerked and bucked, angered with long-lasting pain and trying to shake off these slow and useless people, then tiredly leaned with his whole weight on Newt and took a breath. Leta saw Newt’s hands were already shaking from the strain, but he stubbornly didn’t let go of the hoof and continued scraping. He was strong, Leta thought suddenly. This thought flared up in her mind like an unexpected Lumos, and in its light she saw Newt for the first time that clearly, thin and stubbornly strong, with his scratched and bitten fearless hands and snow in his disheveled hair. It must feel coarsely tickling to the touch, and prickly with melting snow drops, she thought, and the same prickly and tickling goosebumps rushed down her back. The unicorn snorted in her face and yanked jealously, and then pus finally sprinkled onto the snow. Newt cast a disinfectant spell on the sick hoof and wiped his sweaty forehead, smiling wearily. 

“Done!”

Theodor hesitated before getting up on all four legs, obviously surprised that the hoof no longer hurt. Professor Kettleburn looked at him and rubbed his hands.

“Well, now he’ll run like new. Poor fellow! Well done, lady and gentleman! Twenty points to Hufflepuff.”

Newt looked at Leta and turned to the Professor.

“Sir, and Slytherin?” he prompted.

Kettleburn also looked at Leta and slapped his forehead.

“Beg your pardon! You go together all the time, and I forgot the Hat has scattered you over the Houses.” 

Slytherin also received its award points, Theodor graciously allowed to comb his mane and rushed off to the Forbidden Forest, and Professor Kettleburn showed them the tracks on the edge and told many interesting things about the Centaurs' winter customs. Leta and Newt returned to the castle when it was already dark, just before bedtime. 

“Goodnight!”

“Night.”

Smiling, Newt took a turn to the kitchen corridor, towards the picturesque delicacies on the walls and piles of the big-bellied barrels. Leta went on, to the bare wall awaiting the password ahead. We’re they in the same House, they could spend the whole evening by the fireplace, together, she thought. But there was nothing to be done, and she would have to come up with some other plan for the evening. Show some resourcefulness. Isn't that what Slytherin is famous for, after all?


	6. The best day for love divinations

Madam Cassandra adjusted the elegant lilac veil on her hat and cast a mysterious glance around the room. 

"January the twentieth," she said with a smile, "is the best day for love divinations.”

Nott and Greengrass, the only boys in the Divination class, let out a bored moan, while the girls visibly perked up. Madam Cassandra restored the order saying she had foreseen a question about love predictions in the examination tickets, but excused the gentlemen from participation and allowed them just to observe. Meanwhile, the girls got at their disposal an extensive practical arsenal for finding out the identity of a husband waiting somewhere in the days to come. They threw skins of enchanted apples over their shoulders, broke augurey eggs into water, and looked at the early winter moon through a silk handkerchief. Initially very skeptical, even Leta eventually became involved. Especially when her apple peel fell into the shape of something like the letter S.

“I saw a face!" Rebecca exclaimed, gazing hungrily at the moon clouded with her yellow silk handkerchief. "I really did! He is young, blond and handsome!”

Leta rolled her eyes. Well, yes, what else is needed for happiness! 

“It wasn't Tris, was it?" Rebecca’s friends teased her, giggling. 

Professor Trelawney smiled enigmatically at them and went over to Leta. 

"What does the moon tell you, miss Lestrange?" 

Leta's red handkerchief trembled slightly in her hands. She had been afraid of Professor Trelawney since the very first lesson. A real Seer, so everyone said — what could she see in her past, what could she know? This fear made Leta try at her lessons as if she were fulfilling her part of their illusory deal. “I study hard, and that's all you know about me”. But today, no matter how hard she tried, no faces appeared on the silk threads in the moonlight. She probably should have just lied and made up some blond and handsome guy, too.

Gryffindor girls at their window burst into giggles.

"Give her another handkerchief, Professor, she won't see anything on the red one," said Rebecca with a nasty little smile. "He is red-haired, isn't he, Leta?"

Leta pretended not to hear and glared at the handkerchief, but it refused to reveal the face of any future beau of hers.

Or maybe Rebecca was right?

"I don't see anything, Professor," Leta said at last.

More chuckles, whispers:

“Why am I not surprised?"

Leta thought she heard Greengrass mutter something, but it was drowned out by a scream from Rebecca as her bowl with water and eggs suddenly toppled over into her lap. 

When the puddle and Rebecca’s wet robe had been dried, they began to read signs on a saucer of flour, sending a snail spurred with a spell slither over it. The markings it would leave were — of course — to hint at a particular name. Judging by the excited whispers, gasps and screams at the Gryffindor table, the snail had written Rebecca a sonnet. On Leta's saucer, it stubbornly refused to move. Only hers, the only one in class.

Until today, Leta had never imagined herself as the mistress of her own home and a married lady. All the inspirational examples of love for her did not go beyond the book of fairy tales. In reality she saw her father replacing one dead woman in white with another as indifferently as faded lilies in a vase, and cold well-dressed ladies arm-in-arm with his friends at his receptions. Couples that came together and spent the evenings looking in opposite directions. Leta never cared she wasn't meant to become one of those women, but now her cheeks burned painfully hot. Why? Why had she already been robbed of something she didn't even dare to want?

"Don't worry" Rebecca's friend said, stifling a laugh. “Maybe this snail is some enchanted prince! Kiss it and see!”

"Ladies, that's enough," said Professor Trelawney. 

Gryffindor girls giggled furiously, covering their faces with their hands.

“So that's why she's always with animals!" Rebecca gasped through laughter. “Looking for a soul mate!”

Leta picked up her saucer and turned to the Gryffindor, smiling broadly.

“It does look like a prince," she said sweetly. “Take a closer look."

And she shook the flour and the snail in Rebecca’s face.


	7. L + N

When Leta first entered the Slytherin common room, she realized with horror that she had found her place. Dark green waters move behind the magic windows, and she is at the bottom, she too has drowned and will pay for what she has done. Then it passed. She chose the bed farthest from the windows, drew the curtains tight every evening and learned to ignore the greenish underwater light that filled the Slytherin halls. She had found her place, but somehow every year she felt more and more like a stranger there. Her fellow Slytherins didn't bully her: they were all the same species here, in their green and silver uniform scales, and they didn't hunt each other, having nothing to fight over, but she hadnt made any friends either. Since the very first year she had been cut from the others with dark rumors about her family, and from her non-Slytherin classmates by her House’s dark reputation that suited her so well. It lay on her like a shadow clinging to her skin, making her stand out, separated rom everyone, dark among the light, in every sense. Away from her, others cocooned in giggles and secrets, borrowed hairpins and shared stories, and she stayed outside, pretending to be asleep behind her ever-drawn curtains, while the other girls whispered and laughed, and shared candy and dreams with each other

It was the same that day.

Night had fallen long ago, and the room behind the curtain of green silk was filled with restless whispers. 

“There was a note, I'm telling you! Max had been looking at you all lesson, he just didn't dare throw it to you.”

Whispers and laughs.

“Boys are such cowards!”

Newt is not a coward. When they found a grindylow tangled in the reeds, its fingers broken, he didn’t hesitate to go into water to save him, he didn’t even take his wand. Leta was pulling the threads of her embroidered blanket and listening about that Max with his notes, and then about Hector, the head of Slytherin, who was "so smart he’s bound to become the Minister!", and about some Harold, who was definitely going to be taken into the national team after school... She listened on and hated herself for wanting to get into this silvery, flirtatious world where girls showed off their new shoes, blushed and giggled, and boys’ names sounded like a password. She wanted to have the ticklish courage to tell someone that Newt had wonderful eyes, blue and green at once, and really wonderful, since he saw the world so much better with them than it really was... But there was no one to tell, she had no friends. Only Newt.

The next morning Leta had to serve her detention: throwing snails in the face of such cows as Rebecca Prewett, unfortunately, was not allowed by school rules. As a punishment, she had to clean up the classrooms without any magic. It was supposed to be called “helping Mr. Pringle clean up”, but Mr. Pringle, the caretaker, preferred to just watch her work and do nothing. Leta swept the dust from all the shelves and re-arranged the books and study models on them, collected scattered fragments of parchment, broken quills, and other debris from the floor. Mr. Pringle commanded, sitting at the teacher's desk:

“Don’t miss that one over there! Used to house elves doing everything back at that family palace of yours, are you? Thought you can do what you want at school? Throwing slugs! Well, I never!”

Leta pursed her lips. Lifting the desk lid, she began to scrub off the writings and scrape the burnt traces of explosive bonbons with a penknife. The lid bore names and messages to friends, drawings of some unthinkable animals and symbols of favorite Quidditch teams, strange icons and runes... Leta’s thoughts drifted back to yesterday's Divinations. Why couldn't she see anything? Leta remembered staring at the moon through her handkerchief and knew she was trying to recognize the face, not just see it. Knew she wanted to blush and laugh with friends like other girls. But there was no future for her and no friends. Only Newt.

Leta gripped the knife as if for a fight, pressed hard on the blade, cutting a line — one, another — across other people's drawings, words, and names, her eyes so dry and so wide open they hurt.

Something clattered, coins came rolling onto the floor under the teacher’s desk. Mr. Pringle cluched his pocket.

"Damn it!" he muttered.

He reached to pick up the money, but before he could do so, a niffler darted through the door and deftly grabbed the nearest Sickle.

"Oi! You greedy little...”

Mr. Pringle reaches for the coin, but the niffler dodged and ran down the corridor. The caretaker rushed out after the thief, sending the door flying open, and in a moment Newt’s head popped in. Leta slammed the desk lid shut so quickly she pinched her finger, gasped in pain, flushed, and only then realized where and why the niffer had come from. 

"Let’s go!" Newt called. “Before he comes back!" 

Leta smiled so gratefully and happily, as if he had saved her not from the caretaker and cleaning, but from death in dragon's claws. Yes, she had Newt, and that was all she needed. 

They hid until nightfall in a grove on the edge of the Forbidden forest, laughing and throwing snowballs. Stars and snowdrifts glittered, and even the air did so, stirred with small prickly snowflakes and the steam of their breath, and Leta almost forgot about that unfortunate Divination lesson. After all, people choose their future, no matter what Professor Trelawney has to say about it. And if so, than Leta chose what’s inscribed on that desk.


	8. Of ashwinders and heartbreaks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on real events, so to say (Dumbledore’s comments on “The fountain of fair fortune” from “Tales of Beedle the Bard”)

“A Christmas play?” Newt looked up at Leta in amused surprise. The jarvey they were feeding lifted a clawed hind leg, scratching its ear, and growled "Gr-r-crap!” 

“Who would you be?”

“Amata. The one left by her lover,” Leta explained. "It’s all Professor Beery! Prewett sprayed me with bubotuber pus in the last lesson, and I put Petrificus Totalus on her... And he said that if we didn't want to get detention, we would have to participate in the play. He sees "incredible dramatic potential" in us.

“Will you have a dragon? There's a dragon there, right?”

Leta rolled her eyes with a laugh. Well, of course, in any story Newt would be more interested in any kind of beast more than in plot, characters and actors all put together.

“Prewett could be the dragon,” she said. “She can spit poison all right. Just needs the snake’s head made and she’s done.”

Newt chuckled, but without much enthusiasm. Her endless feud with Rebecca always surprised him. He was never attacked by even the worst school bullies. That often made Leta wonder. Apparently, Newt wasn't a predator, and he didn't have the aggressive coloring to scare off cretins like Tris Carrow and his cronies. How did he do it, then, how did he defend himself? Leta wondered about this until one day, when she was looking for Newt who hadn't come to breakfast, she found him near the owlery at the same time as Carrow, who was just looking for a victim.

“Well, well, what has our Beastmaster caught this time?" he sneered, approaching Newt. "Mending some owl's ruffled feathers?"

Newt raised his head and looked at Carrow as if he had been woken up.

“What?” he asked, leaning forward with hasty politeness, and it was clear that he was not pretending, he truly hadn’t heard. And wasn't afraid, didn't think he was meant to be hurt.

Tris Carrow paused for a moment, then muttered "Nothing," and went on to send his letter. And Leta realized that Newt was just pure, as clean as a polished mirror, and everyone who tried to attack him got blinded by their own ugly reflection. She was different. 

Art should unite, and Professor Beery, guided by this principle, decided to recruit one young talent from each House for four roles in the play. Gryffindor Rebecca Prewett was given the role of ailing Asha. Altheda the healer was going to be played by Ethelinda Smith of Hufflepuff, Professor Beery's favourite student, who dreamed of working at St Mungo's hospital and was very happy to be able to save someone's life, even if only on stage. But with Sir Luckless Professor Beery was unlucky in full accordance with the character's name. Since the other three houses were already represented, the actor had to be found among the Ravenclaws, but they proved worthy of the title of the most intelligent house and flatly refused, no matter how hard Professor tried to seduce them with promises of undying theatrical fame. 

The greatest interest among the performers of the roles of the three sorceresses (in addition to searching for a suitable gentleman for the only male role) was arisen by the costumes. 

“Costumes must be grandiose and extraordinary, so that your classmates see you as completely different people! Our entire play lasts no more than an hour, and during this time we must convey to the audience the stories of four lives!” Here Professor Beery paused and made hasty calculations in his mind. “We must fit eighty years in sixty minutes, friends! Nothing will help us in this more than costumes. Let's start the discussion. Miss Lestrange, what would you wear if your heart was broken?”

***

“What did you say?" Newt asked at breakfast the next morning, handing Leta a plate of sandwiches.

“That I would spend all my money on the most gorgeous clothes and jewelry!"

“Why...?"

Leta didn't know, but she was sure she would do exactly that.

“If I'm not loved, I should at least convince myself that I deserve better. Because I have a beautiful gown, and diamonds, and hairdo.”

Newt suddenly got extremely interested in the shiny floor under their table.

“You deserve that in any gown,” he said to her shoes.

Those words kept Leta warm all day, and even when Rebecca said Sir Luckless hadn’t been found because no one would tell Amata Lestrange they loved her, Leta barely noticed. As it turned out, this time they had to play for the audience: Professor Dumbledore was watching the rehearsal. At the request of the director he was to create a magic hill and fountain at the premiere and wanted to see what would be happening on stage in advance. It was hard to imagine a more friendly audience, but all three performers were extremely nervous. When they had finished, Dumbledore rose from his seat at the back of the class and graciously applauded the actresses. Than he waved his wand, and the air it outlined sparkled with streams of illusory water washing over a tall, snow-white bowl. 

“Something like that, probably?"

“Wonderful,” sighed Professor Beery. “If only you could conjure Sir Luckless for me, too!"

There was a loud knock on the door, and Professor Kettleburn poked his head in, followed by, to Leta's surprise, Newt. In his hands was a large box, in which something was rolling and rustling.

“We've brought you the worm,” Professor Kettleburn announced cheerfully and pointed at the box. “Look, will this laddie do?"

“We need a Worm, not a wormling!" Professor Beery exclaimed wearily, barely glancing into the box Newt had brought. “Find someone more exciting, dear colleague, will you?”

Newt nodded and deftly slammed the lid of the box shut before the creature inside could get out.

“Does your worm have to be white, like in a fairy tale?" he asked.

“I would like to get as close to the original text as possible, so…”

“It's just that albinos tend to have poor eyesight, which makes them more anxious and dangerous.”

“Then let it be crimson!” hurriedly said Professor Beery. 

Professor Dumbledore was watching the two of them.

“A sharp mind is prone to criticism, and a good critic is a bad actor, " he said. “It seems to me you are looking for your hero in the wrong house, my dear Professor. Leave the Ravenclaws to watch.

Professor Beery threw up his hands. 

“But I have planned ... Four roles — four houses, instead of competing, work together.”

“I'm sure you'll bring the whole school together on the opening day."

Professor Beery rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“Well, indeed,” he drawled, and Dumbledore turned to Kettleburn and his assistant, who were just about to leave.

“Newt,” he said “would you mind helping us? I'm sure you'll do just fine. And you will look after the dragon yourself.”

Newt stared at him with pure horror, and Leta suddenly thought that Professor Dumbledore was right. Sir Luckless was brave and strong without any fountains, he just did not know it about himself. Just like Newt.

“No!” Newt panicked, turning to Leta for support, but she nodded happily in response. “No, Professor, I... No!”

“What scares us is does not always deserve to be feared. You know that, Newt.”

Newt stared at him, but Dumbledore just smiled serenely.

***

However, with the acquisition of the long-awaited fourth actor, things did not go well at all. Newt performed the first part of the play properly, though argueing with Professor Beery about the treatment of the worm and especially whether it was necessary to jump at it with stones and swords. But the final scene was a nightmare. Leta stood frozen as if ten Professors Dumbledores were watching her, and Newt, looking at the floor or at the ceiling and refusing to find her in between, muttered:

“Never has a maiden fairer... graced my view... Oh, sweet Amata, I love you.”

Newt said all that in a voice as flat as if he were asking for half a pound of rat spleens wrapped up in an apothecary, and his ears were burning, while Leta, all red, listened and tried to ignore the giggles behind her.

In the end, Professor Beery broke down.

"Mister Scamander, this is the ultimate moment! I'm afraid your performance is not really... Not very...”

Dismissal was hanging in the air, but the prospect of searching for the actor again did not allow Professor to voice it. Then an idea lit up in his eyes.

“We need alchemy between the actors!" he exclaimed. “Let's try with other young ladies. Mister Scamander, do your best!”

***

"You and Prewett did a good job," Leta said at last, her voice as cold as the long-forgotten pie on her plate.

The Great hall, already decorated for Christmas, was filled with laughs and voices, but a bubble of unpleasant silence had been building around her and Newt ever since that rehearsal.

"I'm sorry! I didn't know Professor Beery would make you switch roles!”

"I don’t care. Asha is more interesting than Amata.”

That may have been true, but Leta still felt betrayed: by Professor Beery, who chose Prewett over her, and, far worse, by Newt, too. Playing that stupid final scene with him was a real torment, but why imagining the beautiful maiden was her was an impossible struggle for him, while Prewett was perfect for that role? Prewett! That same Prewett who had been poisoning her life for three years and Newt knew it. My friend's enemy is my enemy, isn't it how things should work? However, they had easily rehearsed that terrible scene together, and then talked about something in the hall. These memories were bubbling up in Leta's mind like some thick acidic potion, and marred all their classes, dinners and breakfasts together.

"Why do you sit and talk to me when you can't even pretend to love me?"

By the day of the premiere, Leta had come to hate the play, Beadle the Bard, Professor Beery, and theatre as it is. Newt had been at Professor Kettleburn's since early morning, dealing with their mysterious worm, which they intended to keep secret until it appeared on the stage. He appeared only when it was time to change into costumes, already in the chainmail of Sir Luckless and for some reason sporting burned eyebrows.

"Is the worm ready?" Professor Beery rushed to him, sparkly tinsel around his neck rustling.

"Yes," Newt said. "Professor Kettleburn put a sleeping spell on her to keep her from crawling away. We'll wake her up when we fight her.

Professor Beery rubbed his hands together nervously. 

“Don't forget to take your sword, Mister Scamander, not like the last time. Ladies! All ready, all dressed?”

Everyone was ready. Altheda, robbed to the skin by some villain, was dressed up in a mismatched skirt and blouse, gloves from different pairs, and huge men's boots. Leta was given a black gauze robe that made her look more like a Dementor than a sickly lady, and a witch hat with a crown dramatically tilted in the middle to symbolize the character's mental and physical breakdown. Prewett, the romantic heroine, wore a purple robe and a wreath on her curled head. Her eyes were red, Leta noted vindictively. Such a good actress that she's crying even behind the scenes?

"Repeat your lines ," said Professor Beery, and looked at his pocket watch. “We'll be starting soon!" 

The Great hall beyond the curtain was filled with the noise of many anticipating voices. The tables had already been pushed to the walls to make room for the audience, and the professors table had been turned into a stage, a lush purple curtain drawn around it.

“Is he not better?"

Leta looked up at the sound of Newt's voice, but he was addressing Prewett, not her. Rebecca said something, wiping her eyes, and Ethelinda came up to them and put a pitying arm around her shoulders. Leta watched this touching inter-house unity, stunned. The first notes of the opening tune sounfed, and "Amata", whose lines were first, broke the conversation and hurried on stage. 

Newt looked at Leta and gave her a half-reassuring, half-hopeful smile, but it only made Leta feel worse.

“I didn't know you and Prewett were such good friends, " she whispered.

"We're not... Of course we're not friends!" Newt said. 

Leta looked away with a grim laugh, and he lowered his voice.

“Her father has the dragon pox, a long time ago,” he said. “They sent her an owl today that he's at St. Mungo's and ... Maybe he's...”

She probably should have felt sorry, but she couldn't, there was too much desperate, terrified anger building up inside her.

“And so she became good all at once?”

Newt was looking at her, tense and confused.

“She is not good, it's just... She's not alright!”

Leta's throat tightened.

“So you're on her side now?”

Newt didn’t have time to think up an answer. The curtain slowly crept up, and the Great hall burst into applause, hooting, and whistling.

Professor Dumbledore did his best: there was a real forest on the stage, full of mysterious rustling, bird trills and eerie green lights. The grass, flowers, and trees were only slightly different from the living ones — a little too bright, elongated and angular, they looked like drawings from a book of fairy tales. From the very edge of the stage to the ceiling, draped in magical mist, rose the hill that the characters had to climb to the Fountain. 

Leta mumbled her lines, walked around the stage, held hands with others as the magic branches pulled them into the garden, and she was not even afraid: her own thoughts were far worse than being watched by a hundred of eyes. "She's not all right." Was that why Newt had become her friend, too? Just because she eas not allright, like a raven chick, like a unicorn with a wounded leg, like everyone else he just couldn't pass by? Leta woke up from these thoughts only when the characters came to face the worm. Huge, ashen-gray and red-eyed, it curled around the hill in scaly coils, hissing softly and eerily, and exuding distinct heat. The sight of it was so menacing that, in her confusion, Leta did not immediately recognize it as an ordinary ashwinder, magnified to an incredible size. Newt and Professor Kettleburn said they would bring the worm in just before the show started. Now it became clear: ashwinders’ lifespan is limited, they hurry to lay eggs, and then…

“Oh, what a beast we have before us!” Ethelinda exclaimed with perfect sincerity, and the ashwinder tightened her coils around the hill, cocking its triangular head. “We cannot pass, if we...”

Leta glanced uneasily at the tall grass at the foot of the hill, searching for the distinct golden pulsation of ashwinder eggs. Her gaze slid to Newt and Rebecca, who were standing on the other side of the stage. They were holding hands. They were supposed to do so by the play, but the sight of it still left a hot lump in Leta's throat. This was her role, she should be standing there, but no one would fall in love with Amata Lestrange. She turned away, forgetting what she was looking for, and the rows of spectators blurred before her eyes. Her character was supposed to be crying, and Leta thought with horror that tears were actually about to run down her cheeks. Well, let it be. Everyone will think she's a genius actress. She knelt on the enchanted grass in front of the worm, feigning desperation that was real, and right in front of her, among the bushes at the foot of the hill, a blink of gold and red flashed. Ashwinder eggs! With a startled gasp, Leta jumped to her feet, raised her wand, just in time to hear Professor Beery whisper Asha's line to her from behind the tree. And then the ashwinder exploded like a firework. 

Sparks and burning chunks of wood spattered in all directions. The Great hall was filled with terrified screams, smoke, crackling, and heat. A piece of set decoration knocked Leta's hat off, and splinters scraped her cheek. New shielded himself and Rebecca with a hasty Protego, and... Later Leta couldn't remember what that sight had done to her, but instead of a shielding charm, a different spell had come out of her wand. 

Rebecca screamed and clutched at her swollen cheek, but knew immediately who had attacked her. In response, she hurled a Stinging jinx at Leta and missed, because one of the ashwinder eggs burst right in front of her. Spurts of flame splashed around. Leta's robe caught fire, she hastily drenched it with Aguamenti and got hit with Rebecca’s spell, which knocked her off her feet, smashing into a tree-set. Nearby, someone was shouting spells and screaming in pain, smoke and tears were eating at Leta’s eyes, hot ash-filled air stuck in her throat

“Oppugno!”

“Furnunculus!”

"Ladies! What are you doing?” Professor Beery darted between them and immediately clutched at his head, which suddenly began to swell. Two spells simultaneously hit him from both sides and worked incorrectly and terribly. 

“Leta!”

Newt, his face smeared with soot, was looking at her as if seeing her for the first time, and her own reflection in his mirror made Leta freeze. For a second, and then she turned and ran out of the hall.


	9. Jarvie

The day after the play Leta skipped breakfast, although she had been up long before dawn. The thought of having to face Newt after last night forced her to curl under the blanket in... shame? Fear? Something else? 

In the end they did meet, of course, and Newt didn't say anything, just asked how her scratched cheek was, but he looked at her in a different way, as if she were a wounded animal that might attack any moment. Gone was that precious simplicity of friendship that had been warming her for years through the cold of all the dungeons put together. They were no longer at ease with each other. Leta was embarrassed of her horrible behavior, but at the same time she was angry at Newt for making friends with Rebecca, and she also felt desperate. She had given away something secret and important at that play, but he hadn't noticed, and thank Merlin for that, but... They still worked together with bowtruckles and jarvie, trying to teach it to say something other than swear words, did their homework together and sat next to each other in class, but it was as if just out of habit, and Leta found herself looking at Newt questioningly and not knowing what the question was. How do you feel about Rebecca? How do you feel about me? Do you know what I feel? She herself did not know, did not understand, and was afraid of herself, like of some monster from under the bed: unknown, insatiable, and horrific. Maybe Newt was afraid of her, too? And wasn’t he right? 

*** 

The jarvie finally deigned to use the word “trap” instead of “crap”, and, having received a delicious piece of meat as a reward, was munching greedily in the corner of the closet. It was already dark outside the window, time to go to their living rooms, but whenever this thought came to mind, Leta promised herself she would only sit here for another five minutes. And five more. And more. A frozen salamander, curled up like a cat in Newt’s lap, was warming itself, and Pickett was running his thin paws over the misty glass, admiring the patterns. Everything was so peaceful, so much as before that Leta could not stand its contrast with the confused chaos in her own head. 

“Do you think I'm terrible?” she blurted out quite out of place. Newt stared at her in such astonishment that it alone made Leta feel better, and she finished, looking at the collar of his robe instead of his face: 

“Because of the play.” 

He found it hard to look at her, too. 

“No, of course not," he muttered, moving his hands helplessly, as if the right words were flying around like fireflies. “You... We're friends.” 

It was both the best and the worst thing he could have said. Leta smiled and then bit her lip, and Newt smiled back. A growl came from the corner: the jarvie didn't like being forgotten. He leapt up into Leta's lap, and when she reached to stroke him, slapped her palm with his claws. While Leta licked her scratches, Newt scolded the jarvie with severity most unlike him, put the beast to think about its behavior in a large box with grass and found a phial of dittany among their supplies. 

"May I?...” 

Leta nodded, licked her dry lips, and held out her scratched hand. Newt moistened a piece of cotton with brown tincture. The smell of it was acrid, sour and iron-like. He carefully ran the cotton over a long, bleeding scratch on her palm. Leta’s skin tingled with stinging pain, and she sighed through clenched teeth. Newt hastily raised her hand to his lips, blew, and goose bumps ran from her bruised skin all over her body, fanned by his breath like sparks. 

"Does it hurt?" 

She shook her head. The scratches were already closing right before her eyes, but Newt touched the cotton to her skin again, drawing something round and invisible behind his head bent so low that his hair tickled her wrist. Leta sat motionless and for some reason hardly breathing. Newt looked up at her and smiled shyly. On the palm of her hand, blooming on the scratch like on a stem, was a dittany-painted flower. 

They have not yet learned to brew Amortentia, but Leta knew in advance this potion would have for her this pungent, sour and iron-like smell. 

“Gr-r-crap!” 

The jarvie didn't want to stay in the box and, disturbed by the unfamiliar smell, got out and bared its teeth angrily. 

"Come here!” Newt reached out to catch the restless ferret, but it dodged and, raising the fur on its back, leaped through the crack in the half-open door and was gone. 

Leta and Newt exchanged desperate glances and, without a word, followed. 

They crept and ran through the corridors of the sleeping castle, both hunters and prey for the patrolling caretaker or teachers, and for the first time since that damned performance Leta felt good: they were doing their job together and not thinking about anything else. 

“Shame there’s no spell to show footprints,” Newt whispered as they paused at the crossing of two corridors, wondering where the jarvie had chosen to go. 

They took their luck and turned left, but had only made a few steps when they heard voices approaching from around the corner ahead. Newt pulled Leta into an alcove behind a dusty tapestry. It was too small, their shoulders pressed against each other, in silence Leta could hear his breathing, and despite the risk of their situation she wanted to laugh from the excitement, the stupid hazardous fear, and the radiant joy of how her arm burned against his. 

“...what she did at the play?” That was Professor Merrythought‘s voice. “Surely the girl can't be blamed, living in such a family! But here's what happens when a girl doesn't get the right upbringing.” 

"You think she was jealous?" said Madame Trelawny. 

"Of course. Painful to watch. She has fallen head over heels in love with the boy, but she is too much of a wildling even for him.” 

The professors passed by, and the corridor became silent again. Leta could not move. They had to go out and look for the jarvie, as if she hadn't heard anything, teachers may gossip about whatever pleases them, they are humans, after all, and... But Newt had heard them, too. Leta stood as if paralyzed with a spell, and did not know whether she was pale or burning red. Her arms and legs grew leaden, as if all the blood from her face had flowed into them, her black, heavy blood… "Of course, with such a family!” In spite of herself she turned and looked at Newt. He was watching her, too, and she couldn't make out his expression in the dark, but he was looking at her and he was silent. Just like her, but everything had been said for her, her secret had been revealed to her, and to him, too!.. It was only a few seconds, but that was too long, Newt should have said something, but he didn't. Leta felt she was going to throw up from fear, from this waiting, and before that could happen, she rushed out from behind the tapestry and ran, remembering nothing about the jarvie or about the need to make no noise, about the fact that Mr. Pringle might be on the lookout for trespassers at any corner. Things couldn’t get any worse. 

*** 

The next day was Saturday, a day off for everyone except for Leta and Rebecca. Their behavior at the play had earned them both a month-long detention. Professor Slughorn warned Leta that such antics put at risk her stay at Hogwarts, and she should have been worried about that, but was only too happy: the punishment gave her a chance not to think about what to do next. The answer had already been given: to clean, wash and sweep, because the detention was to be served restoring the Great hall, which by the end of unfortunate “Fair fortune” had lied almost in ruins. 

Wiping the soot from the wall, Leta glanced sideways at her partner. Prewett was working in silence. Her face was pale, but she was no longer crying. What about her father? Has he recovered or not? As much as she hated Rebecca, Leta didn't want her to be an orphan. Maybe that's what Newt thought? He just sympathized with Prewett and that's it? Because he knows compassion and is not afraid to feel it, is not afraid to be kind? And she's afraid, she doesn't know how, hasn't learned from him in all the years of their... friendship. 

_This is what happens when a girl doesn't get the right upbringing..._

"Crrrap!” 

Rebecca jerked, startled, and both she and Leta turned at the sound coming from under a pile of charred planks in the corner. 

“Peeves?” Prewett called tentatively. 

There was a rustle in the pile of wood, and the missing jarvie came out. Leta rushed to the beast, lifted it up, and deftly caught its fanged muzzle in her palm. The jarvie was swishing its tail angrily, but didn't let out its claws or bite. 

"Shh, it's me," Leta murmured soothingly. "Calm down!” 

The jarvie finally pulled its head free and let out a string of filthy curses, crowning them with its favorite guttural “Crrrap!” 

“What is it? Your pet?” 

For a moment, Leta thought that Rebecca was actually asking out of interest, as if in response to her own willingness to ask about her father. But then... 

“Suits you,” Rebecca added. 

_Of course, with such a family._

Leta met Prewett's eyes and again, just like at the play, she didn't know what was happening to her, whether it was anger or pain that filled her, mingling inextricably, like in a wounded animal. 

"Crrrrap!” the jarvie snarled and bit her finger. 

Rebecca backed away, her face a mixture of fear and disgust. 

_Painful to watch._

And Leta couldn't stand it any longer. She grabbed the ferret and pushed it, its paws furiously clawing the air, straight at Rebecca.


End file.
